Been Here Before

Well, for three days now I have actually spent several hours every day working on Sky. On Friday I thought I might have a one-page synopsis written by Monday. On Saturday I rewrote what I’d come up with on Friday and thought it was moving along. Until the end of the day as I was reading over my five paragraphs and realized that the first four were all backstory, and I hadn’t even gotten to the actual events of the story.

So today I didn’t know what to do. What I’ve written does flow. But the actual events of the story need to begin in paragraph one, not five, and I can’t figure out how to do that and still have it all make sense.

I did get out some of my old writing notes, particular passages I’ve culled from the book Overcoming Writing Blocks, and hey! It’s familiar stuff. I’ve been here countless times before. How is it I can so easily forget that the blank mindedness, the flitting from thing to thing, the inability to concentrate, the feeling of being overwhelmed by all the possibilities, all the notes and folders and stacks of papers with their seemingly unrelated ideas… how can I so easily forget that it was exactly like this in every book I’ve ever written?

Well, one of the things those passages mention is the importance of time. After wrestling with the material a bit, you give it a rest and come back refreshed the next day, which is what I think I’ll do.

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